Dive Sites - Playa Chica, Puerto del Carmen

Submitted by Scuba Mike on Tue, 16/06/2009 - 07:49.

Playa Chica is the “standard” dive site in Lanzarote, and the most dived area of the island. That’s because entry and exit are easy, there’s plenty to see, and the dive sites are all quite well sheltered meaning even when the sea is rough, diving is still safe and visibility remains good.

You can enter and exit either via the steps in the harbor wall, or by using the gently sloping sandy beach. There are also boats from the harbor to take divers out to the two wrecks which are too far to swim out to.

Once in the water and submerged, you’ll find yourself on a sandy bottom at about 6 meters and surrounded by mooring ropes. Check the ropes as you may well see sea horses amongst them. In this area you’ll find cuttle fish, the occasional ray or Angel Shark and lots of small Wrasse. Take care of boat traffic. The harbor wall is also a fabulous place for a night dive.

Moving deeper, you can dive The Cathedral, which is a huge, volcanic, open topped cavern, with a maximum depth of around 30 meters. Here you’ll almost always see large Grouper and rays, and the edge of the cavern is covered with soft and hard corals. Look out for moray eels, scorpion fish and crabs in amongst the rocks.

Further along the reef, The Blue Hole is a wonderful dive. You can drop down through the hole at the top to the bottom of the reef at around 35 meters, and here you’ll find barracuda, more grouper and occasionally a turtle. Swim a little further out and you get into a deep region at 45 meters where you will find black coral, before the reef drops sharply away to 300 meters. Due to the depth, you can’t spend too much time here, but further along to the north the reef rises up to around 25 meters, and it’s a fantastic spot to sit and look out into the blue. I’ve seen some huge tuna doing that, and other divers have reported whales and dolphins. This area is known as “The Drop off.”

As mentioned before, the wrecks are reached by boat and they consist of of three smallish wrecks at depths of from 18 to 32 meters. They are well populated with sea life and you’ll see sardines, emperor fish and lots of small crabs.

One thing that can be quite fun is to be diving the wrecks when the local tourist submarine visits the area from it’s berth in Puerto Calero – you can wave to the tourists as they peer through their portholes!

Playa chica is a wonderful site for divers – in fact, you can do a whole week’s worth of diving there and not repeat a single dive!